ITT: Pants-on-head retarded American road design

Ramp metering is used to control the rate at which vehicles enter from the ramp, which causes fewer conflicts and limits the number of vehicles trying to merge at once. It's actually pretty effective at doing so at highly congested entry ramps.

It's a simplified drawing, there's typically an actual merge lane (length varying by highway).

jughandles are the fucking worst.

americans just aren't that used to roundabouts

What the fuck is this shit
Are you supposed to floor it through both lanes of traffic going right just to have to brake and make a 90* turn to go left?

Whats the purpose of the jug handle?

These look stupid but they work,the two "straight" lanes never have to wait on someone trying to turn left or slowing down to turn right.
Not common throughout the states,only seen a few cities that use them.
t. a trucker fag

They basically build out shit to the side on routes in NJ where one lane will go right and one lane will go left and they will be traffic signal controlled. Wait at the red light until you get the green arrow.

never seen this shit in canada

The intersections are typically much farther away then what this picture implies. These eliminate left turns to stop ricer fagbois from complaining about left lane hogs on surface streets and also make walking distances across intersections shorter. Recently they've been banned from being built anymore because they were a shit idea though

It's to limit the flow of cars getting onto the highway so that it doesn't get plugged up, nothing to do with merging skills

>jughandles
>Michigan lefts

Michigan lefts are probably one of the best inventions ever. Telegraph Road has some of the best traffic flow in the country because the lights never go red

>be american
>encounter roundabout
>have nervous breakdown
>shoot anyone nearby
>road is clear
>traffic decongested
>freedom wins again

In my city there was a couple highway entrances with no speed up lane whatsoever and really bad visibility. It was nuts, you had to fucking launch your car it if you got a gap, and i you drove a slow car or anything else you might as well go around and use some other entrance because you'd die waiting for a proper gap.

>Telegraph Road
What town?
Wanna look this up.on a map.
Been through Michigan a bunch,you have a lot of range. Very pretty,and some very shitty. Lot of nice people,(not so much around the lake)but they seem like they are making an effort to be nice.

Then the surface streets will get plugged up. The key to traffic flow is increasing speed and reducing the amount of times you need to slow down or stop like meant. If Americans are this bad at merging with heavy traffic then that's a huge problem that probably has big unnecessary consequences for emergency vehicles among other things

>have to pull a U-turn across usually multiple lanes of opposing traffic
>creates unnecessary driving distance
>one of the best inventions ever

I wasn't thinking of a section south of I 94. It's been a white since I've driven there but I remember basically being able to do 45mph for a considerable distance without coming to any red lights or having to slow down for people turning because of the median u-turn lanes and the fact that the right side of the road is basically one long turning lane to get turning traffic out of the travelling lanes.

youtu.be/fshW_O_XggI

These are based as fuck user

*was thinking of

>entire opposing traffic has to stop for a bunch of U-turners
>somehow this is better than stopping them at the intersection in the first place
Literally can't fucking believe this garbage.

double diverging diamond interchange is better
youtube.com/watch?v=eLAwwl3EtN4#t=1m30s

thankfully they;re getting rid of cloverstack interchanges in congested areas, the concept of having to merge on and off on the same 500ft stretch of road is ridiculous

Europe with its space restrictions some how ends up getting cars off the highway before putting cars on

The fuck is a cloverstack?

>45mph for a considerable distance without coming to any red lights or having to slow down for people turning

Beautiful thing,right?
Almost enough to restore fait in politicians/city planning/local voting.

Drove around the country,did a lap.
And also zig zagged,there is a good amount of Power Line/County line roads.(a few other common-ish names I'll remember in the middle of the night)

>Stopping for red lights is dumb
Dipshit.

The point is that I can't see how this is saving anyone's time. You're only moving the lights for left turns away from the intersection.

From the one highway I've seen with these, it doesn't seem to get backed up, but the ramp is pretty long and it's on a less travelled street.

I think it might also serve to promote alternate routes

woops meant cloverleaf

This is a simplified diagram. On ramp is much longer in real life. Stoplight changes to flashing yellow when traffic isn't backed up, and when it is, the liggt meters new cars in to avoid further congestion. Christ, this is a bad thread.

Forgot to mention flashing yellow just means roll on through, no stopping.

Freeways shouldn't be requiring something like this at all is the point. It's a symptom of bad driving and piss poor urban planning

That's not the case in most of the US. Most of the on ramps have a merging lane that lasts long enough for you to safely get over.

I'm sure Europe has way worse road designs in places, since you have like 5 zillion historical landmarks everywhere and roads that are like 6 inches wide. youtube.com/watch?v=rfn4s-3kJWE

What's wrong with it? You can be on either road heading either direction and get onto the other road in either direction. How else would you do an interchange between two overlapping highways?

Italy is a big exception to European planning and driving. They're shitty dangerous drivers and proud of it

youtu.be/0QpY2ARdTuE

Dude, CONGESTION HAPPENS EVERYWHERE. 95% of the time they're fine. It's just peak commute traffic hours when the metering lights are used.

Yeah let's build three miles of expensive bridges per intersection instead. Weirdly cloverleafs work just fine in Europe.

Never seen this anywhere in america
Enjoy your dirt yuroshit roads

Theyre fucking everywhere in the LA basin

Yea, I'm basically in hate with Downriver's Fort St. and Southfield. Maybe it's because 75S is closed but they suck to turn left on. Especially Goddard.

If you think the level of infrastructure of the US is anywhere near the level of even the worst countries in europe you've clearly never seen both.
And it figures. US: low taxes thus low communal facilities like infrastructure but a lot of purchasing power to buy big trucks to overcome this. EU: high taxes to build amazing infra. Less moneys to spend on cars but no problem as it already is more comfortable to drive a freaking VW polo in europe than it is to sit in a giant SUV in amerika.
t. somebody who's seen both.

That works fine for low traffic roads where there are often breaks in the traffic and the ramp doesn't back up. For higher volume roads we always have a merge lane.

You do realize autobahns have retarded short merging on-ramps? especially when even the 'slow' lane easily does 150 kmph.
And giving the onramp right of way is also retarded.
t. Dutchfag

Ramp metering is used to alleviate congestion, not to help drivers merge.

This is an improved version of the classic cloverleaf. Making a left turn now doesn't require you to slow down. also no weaving of people trying to get on the freeway and people getting off.
more expensive though because of the 2 extra layers of flyovers.
The Netherlands has both.

>already is more comfortable to drive a freaking VW polo in europe than it is to sit in a giant SUV in amerika
Yeah, a tiny 0.013 litre two-cylinder diesel hatchback is so much more fun to drive on roads the width of a panel gap, whereas having a massive gas-hogging SUV with soft suspension and a long wheelbase [spoiler]and maybe even >muh RWD[/spoiler] on a wide swath of road is so dangerous and stressful.

Please don't engage obvious morons. This board is bad enough as is without /int/ shit.

Makes sense.

>Making a left turn now doesn't require you to slow down
The Autobahn is two thirds unlimited, I think I can bear slowing down for a turn for 30 seconds.
>also no weaving of people trying to get on the freeway and people getting off
Not a problem if drivers are tested for whether or not they're morons before they get handed their license. Of course not the case in the US.

It's not a spergwar. Just some general information on infrastructure.
Like i said. The one is not always better than the other. (cost is of huge importance).
And there's also the fact that you need to make the transition from old infrastructure to new. Sometimes you can't just shut down a mayor intersection to clear it and start from scratch.
So there's some excuse for retarded design. (both in the US and even more so in Europe).
But in general I think European infrastructure is much, much better and in the end even more cost-effective than US.

I never understood the 'US have poor roads meme' but I live in TN and we're ranked #2 in road quality so it's basically self-explanatory. I've never been to the states that rank towards the bottom either.

usnews.com/news/best-states/rankings/infrastructure/transportation

Except in Spain where people are genuinely too stupid to zipper merge, I see someone stopped in the merging lane at least once a day and it really makes me wonder how those people can operate a car.

As a Euro I've been to New York before and the roads weren't utterly terrible, but they weren't great by any means. My home region doesn't have great roads either, but there are some countries with absolutely flawless roads here, like the Netherlands. I think a lot of US states benefit simply from mild winters rather than careful maintenance, and as I understand it infrastructural maintenance has been underfunded in the US for decades and now requires immense investments, with staggering amounts of roads, bridges and rails in terrible condition, and possibly even a road network that's too large for sensible maintenance to begin with. It seems that for decades everyone loved building new roads but no one cared about maintaining the ones already in place. Now in some places roads are even getting depaved because the municipalities can't afford fixing them.

We have the thought of putting the exit BEFORE the entrance.
Most of the time, anyway.
There's a bit of road around here that does it american-style, but with a sunken road rather than elevated, and with blocky barriers on them sides of the ramps to cut off visibility. You have to somehow watch the fucktard ahead to make sure they don't brake, while looking over your shoulder for fucktards approaching to cut you off, and keep an eye on the fucktard behind you.
And it's not 500 feet like in America. It's more like 200 from the end of the on-ramp to the start of the off-ramp.
Someone killed a pedestrian there the other day, because there's no way a pedestrian could normally get onto that road in the first place unless they're trying to get hit by a car. So they didn't look for a pedestrian, and then BA-BUMP. As normal for the town, pedestrians where they shouldn't be.

Alright, let's post some interchanges that are both economical and efficient. Here's a windmill (not to be confused with a turbine) which needs a few bridges more than a cloverleaf but nowhere near the bridge monsters of American interchanges, and seperates all directions with gentle bends and no crossweaving traffic. Sadly there only seem to exist a few examples in the world, and this one has been rebuilt differently in the meantime.

Even in areas with harsh winters, roads get rebuilt all the time, just not in major population centers. We keep undesirables in cities, and even as a mass population their income tax isn't enough to maintain the roads.

I think the depaving wave mostly occurs in smaller towns with a large residential road network and low building density though. I recall the article I read on it speaking of Montpelier in Vermont as setting the original example for the practice.

I guess i was more referring to large ghettos like Flint.

grew up in michigan, I loved the michigan lefts. Where I live now, there's just left turn lights at every intersection that get super backed up.

In Michigan I could just hang a right, do a U-turn (cutting through traffic effortlessly in my patrician car), and go through the green light without even stopping

holy shit at 1:47 with the firefighter, I've driven that intersection thousands of times when I was going to MSU

I don't know if you realize, but the light at the U-turn lets you turn on red. So in most cases you could just do the U-turn through the red light, and when the light turns green it literally lasts less than 5 seconds.

>This is somehow high technology
I guess if your road network is ancient

What would you suggest?

>no on/off lane

I live in Ny and we have that

Did a small child draw that road?

The main problem is weaving in the loops. Someone will be trying to merge from the loop to the highway at the same time someone is tyring to merge from the highway to the opposing loop.

I-476 near Philadelphia has them on every exit south of PA 3 because of stupid lobbyists from the 60s.

/int/ shit makes this board vastly better

>mfw they just put Michigan lefts on Hwy23 in WI
they work pretty alright desu.

>How else would you do an interchange between two overlapping highways?

diverging diamond

Highway engineer here. Ask me anything.

They solve completely different problems.

>tfw this is the worst it gets where I live

Feelsgoodman

those lights are only on when traffic gets backed up, otherwise it's business as usual.

we only have crazy traffic here because it's symptomatic of commerce and actually having an economy, unlike whatever yurostan sector op is from

Why does every interchange configuration look like vaginas?

Who stole the cookie from the cookie jar?

No, I meant, to me this seems like basic road maneuver as I have several such places near me, but I guess most of them appeared after the roads here were rebuilt after the fall of the Soviet Union.
I guess most big American roads were built in 50-70s and haven't changed much since then

HOW
FUCKING
HARD
CAN IT BE TO INDICATE YOUR DIRECTION ON A ROUNDABOUT?
There have been multiple times where soccer moms and fat fucks have almost hit me because I didn't know what they fuck they were doing (and they probably didn't either)

looks like a swastika, desu
do you actually care about about required engine power to get on and off, and forces involved.
or is it just "muh collision points"

I've noticed roundabouts are so small where I live that your indicators literally don't flash fast enough for people to see them when you do the advisory speed through them, let alone double it like most people do. I also broke the self cancelling signal mechanism on my truck because the awkward angle of one roundabout at my college would cancel my signal if I didn't hold it in place through the turn

onramp doesn't have right of way, kaaskop
But if you mean that it's retarded of the people in the right lane to brake down so the people from the on ramp can merge, I agree with you

>Telegraph
>what town

Goddamn.

I've heard three different Germans on here say that merging traffic has right if way. Which is it?

Are you allowed to move over to the left to let people in in Germany rather than hit the brakes? I think three different VINWiki Stories videos had guys talking about near misses in Germany having to brake for people merging while they're driving fast, and in pretty sure it's a courtesy in every other first world country to simply move over and let them in

They are wrong
>Konfliktsituationen ergeben sich häufig, weil der Einfahrende beschleunigen muss, um sich in den Verkehr auf den durchgehenden Fahrstreifen einzuordnen und dabei das Vorrecht des durchgehenden Verkehrs beachten muss, [...]
>Vorrecht des durchgehenden Verkehrs
(verkehrslexikon.de/Module/BABEinfahren.php)

Yes you are allowed to, and most people do it.
On some rare occasions there are solid lines between left and right lane in the area where the on ramp is, there you're not allowed to. But this is mainly when the on ramp is in a curve, so the people moving over to the left lane could see fast driving cars too late

but the ramp can't be jammed if people insert properly
I've nevr seen a jammed ramp on a fluid highway in my life

In my city the ramps and merge lanes are all more than adequate but fucktards still accelerate so slowly they merge at 30mph "to save gas"

130hp econoboxes at half throttle look like literbikes in comparison to the way some people (most people) insist on accelerating. I blame automatic transmissions for this.

In a manual you'd have to short shift like a madman and grab a gear every second. In an auto you just press your foot down to 1/16th throttle and turn on the radio.

>i'm savin gas
>i aint no street race
>im savin gas

Why there is not merging lane?

I sometimes like to short shift on my motorcycle for saving gas

Sure, if you're not obstructing anyone by moving over.

First of all the on-ramps are adequate, secondly the right lane usually does 90 kph due to semi trucks. If the right lane is empty enough to go 150 kph (at night and on sundays), then the left lane will be empty enough to move over for merging traffic. Also with such speed differences the obstructing vehicle in the right lane would be gone in a second anyway.

Also the on-ramp doesn't have the right of way.

If you're too retarded for our roads then stay in your bicycle and caravan nation.

This drawing has the turning lane way longer than it really should be.